Press release - Next Director of UNU-WIDER
The United Nations University (UNU) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Finn Tarp as the next Director of the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). Director-Designate Tarp will take up the post on 1 September 2009. He succeeds Prof. Anthony Shorrocks, who served as UNU-WIDER Director from 1 January 2001 through 30 April 2009.
UNU-WIDER, based in Helsinki, Finland, undertakes applied research and policy analysis on global development, poverty and inequality issues. The Director has overall responsibility for the research and management of the Institute.
“I am honored to have been selected for the post of Director of UNU-WIDER,” said Prof. Tarp. “High-quality development economics research and education have a key role to play in furthering socio-economic development in a global economy faced with many challenges.”
Since 2002, Prof. Tarp has been Professor of Development Economics with the Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, and since 2006 has also served as Chair in Development Economics. Prior to that, he worked with the Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen, as Associate Professor (1991–2002) and Assistant Professor (1988–1991). Since 1996, he also has served as coordinator of the Development Economics Research Group (DERG), a collaborative research initiative involving staff and Ph.D. students of the university’s Department of Economics.
Prior to joining the University of Copenhagen, Prof. Tarp spent eight years in Maputo, Mozambique, where he worked as FAO Associate Expert (1980–1981) and Programme Officer/Economist (1981–1986), and then as Project Coordinator/Planning Economist (1986–1987) and Macroeconomist/ Agricultural Planner (1987–1988) with the FAO/Ministry of Agriculture. He previously worked in Swaziland and Denmark, and was out-posted in Vietnam (2000–2003) as Research Coordinator/Senior Economist at the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM) and Visiting Professor at the National Economics University (NEU).
Prof. Tarp grew up in Aalborg, Denmark. He holds MSc and PhD degrees in Economics from the University of Copenhagen. His research interests include development economics; poverty, income distribution, and growth; micro- and macro-economic policy and modeling; agricultural sector policy and planning; and international development assistance. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and has written or edited several books, including Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future (Routledge, 2000) and, most recently, Taxation in a Low-Income Economy: the Case of Mozambique (with C. Arndt; Routledge, 2009).
“I welcome Prof. Tarp to the UNU family,” said UNU Rector Konrad Osterwalder. “I am confident that he will take the UNU’s leading development economics institute in Helsinki to a new level of quality, activity, and outreach.”
Further information about Prof. Tarp can be found at http://www.econ.ku.dk/ftarp/. For more about the global UNU system, see http://www.unu.edu/.
To request an interview with UNU-WIDER Director-Designate Finn Tarp, please contact
Sean Crowley, UNU-WIDER Helsinki, Finland
Tel: +358-9-615 9911; Mobile: +358-400 192271;
Email: sean(at)wider.unu.edu